Redefining Our NEEDS in Perimenopause
Chrissy Foreman (2025) Needs for self-nourishment in perimenopause
For the last few years, understanding my NEEDS has become of great importance to me. I’ve come to realise that 4 decades of masking and people-pleasing as an undiagnosed Autistic ADHD woman, meant my own needs fell to the wayside.
Since hitting perimenopause, my social, emotional, physical and nervous system capacity has significantly shifted (alongside many of the peri-people in my local and online communities!) I needed to dedicate my energy to discover who I really am, how I process and function in the world, and what my interests and values are.
No biggie.
Luckily, I have an amazing tool on my belt - Therapeutic Arts Inquiry.
Chrissy Foreman (2025) Inquiry: Before and after sensory overwhelm
Even before I studied art therapy, and even more so now as a conscious tool for self-discovery, therapeutic arts-making has always helped me make sense of, and bring some compassionate understanding to my own experiences, values and needs (as well as supporting the perimenopausal women I work with.)
With perimenopausal symptoms overlapping with my existing neurodivergent symptoms like brain fog, irritability, fatigue and overwhelm, it’s very easy to get caught up in the challenges of this massive life transition - because it IS HARD!
However I also sense and have been researching the potentially revolutionary emerging gifts that are welling within us, waiting to be reborn, as we navigate this important rite of passage into our wise years.
So in this post, I’m going to share some images from my own therapeutic arts sketchbooks and digital collages, alongside some fabulous lived-experience research, to redefine a contemporary approach to nourishing needs in perimenopause: shifting purely from the medical model, into a spiritual, creative, collective community awakening.
Chrissy Foreman (2026) Digital collage from my April Peri-Women-Pause NEEDS workshop
The Common Medical Model to Perimenopause - a Deficit Approach
Women and people born with ovaries have suffered through the impacts of perimenopause and menopausal symptoms for millennia, particularly in capitalist, patriarchal societies. Our peri/menopausal experiences are treated as symptoms that need to be fixed, so we can get back to operating at the same functioning that capitalist society expects of us.
However many cultures have traditionally viewed “The Change” not as a decline or disease, but as a transition period into wise elderhood and spiritual significance.
Women’s bodies are cyclic, every month, and through transitions of hormonal change from menstruation (puberty), to mid-life (or maternity), to menopause and beyond. And just as many traditional cultures have known for eons, our cyclic nature ebbs and flows through times of growth and times of rest, just like Mother Nature itself.
The world of research is only just starting to catch up with the impacts of perimenopause on those who experience it, because finally, women’s needs are becoming more important and voiced, in social media, by celebrities, in conversations with friends and of course, having more women in medical and research roles.
Right now, the medical model for ‘treating’ perimenopause is based around identifying challenging symptoms we encounter, from hot flushes, heightened anxiety, lack of sleep, emotional overwhelm, rage, irritability, the list goes on. And this is important work that I too benefit from. However symptomatic treatment is only part of the story.
Few medical practitioners help midwife the personal growth, cocoon-like transformation that first emerges during perimenopause, which shifts our body-mind-spirit towards our sovereignty, reshaping of our boundaries, better understanding our needs, and stepping into authenticity.
This is the part I’m most interested in.
Chrissy Foreman (2024) Autumnal landscape with Heightened spiritual sensibility
Redefining Perimenopause as a Meaningful Rite of Passage
A couple of years ago, when I first started noticing changes in my cyclic capacity, a friend of mine shared The Menstruality Podcast with Red School co-founders, Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer.
Via a rich and engaging deep dive into the backlog of thoughtful and meaningful interviews on the podcast, I began to learn how my cyclic nature could become an access point to discovering and meeting my needs, by attuning my body’s emotional and physical responses and changes, day to day, month to month, year to year.
Here, I also discovered a different viewpoint of menstruality and menopause: That our cyclic symptoms present us with attuned information as needs to be met, and navigating perimenopause and menopause can be a powerful transition into deeper self-care, leadership and aligned purpose.
Wise Power book - Learn more on the Red School Website HERE
A Life-Changing Perimenopausal Perspective - Wise Power
In their book Wise Power, Pope and Wurlitzer define peri/menopause as a:
Sacred rite of passage, an initiation that grows your authority, steeps you in purpose and awakens you to great power and wisdom (2022).
Rather than just listing the symptoms of perimenopause and menopause, the book maps the changes we may experience, based on years of reflective research of cyclic lived experience (contributed to by Pope, Wurlitzer, and the thousands of women’s stories they’ve collected over the years.)
Furthermore, they redefine peri/menopausal ‘symptoms’ as cyclic information presenting itself ‘via negativa’, described as a contracting energy that shifts us from outward focus, to an introspective, sometimes challenging state, unveiling our deep inner strength.
Some of the powerful transformations we may experience in Perimenopause are:
Increasing sensitivity and permeability
Stronger intuition
Greater critical capacity for discernment
An increasing sense of detachment
Seriousness
Self-reflection
Heightened spiritual sensibility
Truth speaking
Provocation
Shamanic intelligence
More boundaried (easier to say no)
Less tolerance
(Pope & Wurlitzer, pp. 69-70)
Chrissy Foreman (2024) Shamanic intelligence
How Perimenopause Unearths Our Needs
As we experience deep and powerful transformations ‘via negativa’ in perimenopause, for better or worse, our capacity contracts, as our body-mind rewires to accommodate oncoming menopause.
With less capacity for output, and experiencing a range of rising symptoms we can no longer ignore or override, we are forced to check in with what we actually NEED to cope through this time of life.
This may also be a time where we NEED to let go or redefine of a lot of things we simply don’t have capacity for anymore - friendships, beliefs, late nights, expectations, repressed emotions, output, work: basically anything that drains our energy more.
With this cutting back, we may also find a desire to reconnect with experiences that may have nourished us in our early years, such as painting, dancing, sewing, gardening, as a way to bolster ourselves.
🫶🏾 Bolstering ourselves with joyous, meaningful experiences is a NEED in perimenopause 🐦🔥
🫠 The deep challenges we experience in perimenopause gives rise to identifying what we truly NEED, to cope, nourish and lean into our thriving 💓
It ain’t easy. But with aligned support, meaningful research, and a community to share the experiences with, we can begin to meet our needs more collectively.
Chrissy Foreman (2026) Bolstering My NEEDS in Peri-Women-Pause
Join Us in Peri-Women-Pause: NEEDS
If you’re interested in diving deeper into nourishing Your NEEDS, I invite you to join my beautiful monthly program, Peri-Women-Pause.
Each monthly 1.5 hr online, LIVE session blends gentle education, creative expression and community connection: a sanctuary for you to explore nourishing creativity, restore your mojo, and experience belonging on your transformative peri-journey🐦🔥💫🎨
This month on April 15th, we’re exploring NEEDS.
You’re welcome to come along casually for the online session, or join as a monthly member to carve out regular, regeneration within a community of others sharing your journey.
Wishing you support, creativity and nourishing care, as you navigate your transformative peri-experience.
With love,
Chrissy 🐦🔥
